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The Daily Signal
In IRS Emails,
Lois Lerner Calls Conservatives ‘Crazies’ and … Worse
Melissa Quinn
July 30, 2014
IRS division chief Lois Lerner, the central figure in the tax agency’s
targeting scandal, uses a vulgar anatomical expletive to refer to
conservatives in newly released official emails and, again referring to
conservatives, writes that it’s not foreign terrorists but “our own
crazies that will take us down.”
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., details the emails
from Lerner, then head of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt
organizations division, in a letter to Attorney General Eric
Holder.
The messages, Camp said, provide additional information for a criminal
referral sent to the Justice Department in April. In his letter to
Holder dated today, Camp writes that a “newly discovered email
exchange” from Lerner’s official government email address “directly
demonstrates Ms. Lerner’s deep animus toward conservatives, which she
refers to as ‘a–holes.’ ”
In one of the emails, Lerner goes on to write: “So we don’t need
to worry about alien teRrorists. [sic] It’s our own crazies that will
take us down. ” She suggests they will “ruin the country,” Camp said.
He continues:
This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms.
Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their
rights to due process and equal protection under the law. This builds
on the ample evidence in the committee’s original referral in which the
committee found that Ms. Lerner used her position to improperly
influence agency action against only conservative organizations…
In addition to this email exchange, the Ways and Means Committee
discovered Lerner conducted official business, which included
confidential information, using her personal email address.
In a February 2012 email chain, the IRS official and an agency
information technology specialist discuss a potential virus on Lerner’s
home computer. In the correspondence, Lerner refers to work information
kept on her home computer, but indicates that it’s not a “must” for
sending back to her work laptop.
Referring to the email chain in his letter to Holder, Camp notes that
Lerner stated her computer may have been hacked because of the
simplicity of her password. “This exchange further raises concerns that
taxpayer information may have been leaked,” the Michigan Republican
writes.
The Ways and Means Committee is continuing to investigate Lerner’s role
in the improper targeting of tea party and other conservative groups
applying for tax-exempt status with the tax agency.
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation,
told The Daily Signal that the newly released emails prove the
targeting of conservative groups is hardly an error, as some suggest.
He said:
The revelation by Chairman Camp that a newly
discovered email from Lerner reveals her disdain and contempt for
conservatives shatters claims by critics of the congressional
investigation into the IRS scandal that the targeting of conservative
organizations was just an error.
Von Spakovsky stressed the necessity of major reforms to the agency.
“Nothing is more dangerous than a powerful federal agency like the IRS
abusing its authority to target individuals and organizations based on
their political beliefs and ideology,” he said.
Lerner was held in contempt of Congress after twice citing her Fifth
Amendment right not to incriminate herself by testifying,
In April, Camp referred her case to the Department of Justice for
criminal prosecution. He specifically cited three acts that “may have
violated one or more criminal statutes,” including:
Using her position to improperly influence agency
action against conservative and tea party groups, thus denying such
groups due process.
Impeding official investigations by providing
misleading statements to the Treasury Department inspector general for
tax administration.
Risking exposing and disclosing confidential
taxpayer information by using her personal email to conduct official
business.
Camp said the Justice Department has yet to act on the criminal
eferral. In a statement on the latest email evidence, he said:
Despite the serious investigation and evidence this
committee has undertaken into the IRS’s targeting of individuals for
their beliefs, there is no indication that DOJ is taking this matter
seriously. In light of this new information, I hope DOJ will
aggressively pursue this case and finally appoint a special counsel, so
the full truth can be revealed and justice served.
Read this and other articles with links at The Daily Signal
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